His Old Molly
by mum-to-you
Summary: Molly and Arthur had been friends for a long time. What happened to change that?


It was just after midnight. The girl had set aside her history notes and was staring wistfully up at the blanket of stars that shone from the window of her dormitory at the top of Gryffindor tower. As she gazed up, a shooting star streaked across the sky, and she crossed her fingers to make a fervent wish. When the star disappeared from her sight, she sighed.  
  
"Molly!" hissed her friend Marlene McKinnon. "Are you still up?" Marlene propped her head up on her hands and giggled. "You're mooning after him again, aren't you?"  
  
Molly smiled and giggled in return. "He really is a git, isn't he? I guess I just can't help myself."  
  
Molly turned out the light and sat next to her friend on the bed. "Oh, Marlene, the problem is that I'm just too familiar. I've known him too long- -six years at school alone! You know, I wouldn't be surprised if he hasn't even noticed I'm a girl!" She sighed again, got up, and climbed into her own bed.  
  
The girls eventually tired of talking and fell asleep. Molly, for some reason, had disturbing dreams of batteries, and plugs, and other strange items she couldn't even name, but in spite of her dreams, she awoke in a happy mood.  
  
After pulling on her school robes the next morning, Molly paused to examine her image critically in the mirror on the wall. What she saw was a petite, vivacious girl with a pert nose, a ready smile, and a head of stunning auburn hair. Those who knew her would add that she had a temper to match that hair. Her passionate nature made her very protective of her friends, but her sharp tongue made her a formidable adversary when she was angry.  
  
"It's the red hair, dearie. There's your problem," said the mirror sympathetically. Molly stuck her tongue out at the mirror and went down to the common room to meet Marlene.  
  
"Where are the boys?" she asked, looking around.  
  
"Already left. Let's catch up," answered Marlene.  
  
The girls made their way down to breakfast in the Great Hall, but were stopped by a huge crowd of students around the bulletin board in the castle entryway.  
  
Molly spotted her friends Kingsley Shacklebolt and Arthur Weasley at the front of the mob, so she wormed her way under and between the others and appeared next to them as if by magic. Arthur's red hair made him impossible to lose in a crowd.  
  
"What's going on?" she wondered. Arthur mumbled something unintelligible, flushed a bright red, and turned his head. It was hard to tell where his face stopped and his hair started.  
  
Molly raised one eyebrow. "Come again?" she asked.  
  
"A Winter Ball " answered Kingsley, "That's cool. No Tri-Wizard Tournament, of course, but they're throwing a big dance for sixth- and seventh-years. That'll be fun, eh, Arthur?"  
  
"Some Muggles have dances at their schools, you know," Arthur muttered distractedly, "Call them prams or somesuch."  
  
"And if you go at all, Weasley, it'll have to be with a Muggle," a cold voice drawled from behind them. They turned to face a younger boy with a pale, pointed face and blond hair, who was snickering with a group of his Slytherin cronies.  
  
"Malfoy, must you always be such an insufferable little prat?" asserted Molly, and she instinctively reached for the wand inside her robes.  
  
A tall, blonde Slytherin girl with a scowl on her face tugged urgently at Malfoy's arm. "Lucius, come on!"  
  
"Narcissa, I am not the least bit afraid of a little idiot like Prewett," sneered Malfoy.  
  
"No, really," Narcissa insisted. She leaned over and whispered, "That's the girl with that wicked Bat-Bogey Hex I told you about. C'mon!"  
  
Malfoy slinked back into the crowd with Narcissa on his arm.  
  
"One of these days," threatened Arthur furiously, "I swear I'm going to punch that little gobshite's lights out."  
  
"You say that every time, and every time I tell you it's not worth it," countered Molly severely.  
  
"One of these days, though, he'll push me too far. I mean it."  
  
The four friends sat together at breakfast, as they did every morning. "Arthur," asked Molly, "Why do you have porridge every morning? It's always the same thing, day after day."  
  
"As it happens, I like porridge. A lot," he stated, and he took a huge bite of the oatmeal as if to prove his point.  
  
She buttered a piece of toast and shook her head. They met each other's eyes and grinned widely.  
  
"I say, Molly, will you look over my potions essay before I hand it in tomorrow?" Arthur asked.  
  
"Again? Arthur, really. It's quite simple!" she declared, exasperated.  
  
"So you keep saying, but I just don't get it."  
  
"Oh, all right. I'll look it over tonight. But you have to look over my Muggle Studies homework. I'm absolutely hopeless. I don't see how those things work at all. They put a plug thing into the wall, of all things, to make things go. It just makes absolutely no sense."  
  
"Molly, it makes perfect sense. They don't have any magic, so they have to use this ecklitrickity or however you say it . . ."  
  
She cut him off. "Please, Arthur, not over breakfast. Explain it to me later. I won't remember it anyway."  
  
Kingsley and Marlene got up, and Kingsley said, "We've got Divination first today, so we better leave now. See you two later."  
  
Once they were alone, Arthur and Molly seemed to become tongue-tied.  
  
"So," she stammered, "what do you think about the, erm, ball. The Yule Dance, er I mean ball. Yeah, that." She blushed a bright red and looked up at him expectantly.  
  
It was his turn to blush, and he managed it magnificently. "Ahem. I, er, think . . . well," then he thought brightly, "it would be rather interesting to go with a Muggle, wouldn't it?"  
  
Molly looked at him, crestfallen. "You're joking. No, you're not. Of course, you're not." Her eyes snapped his direction, and he was reluctant to meet her gaze. "Arthur, you're hopeless, you know that?" She stood up and stormed out of the hall.  
  
Arthur looked down at his congealing porridge and muttered, "That didn't go very well. Not very well at all."  
  
Molly, meanwhile, stormed back up to the Gryffindor common room. She ran up to the Portrait of the Fat Lady and muttered, "Treacle Tart." The painting swung open to reveal a hole in the stone wall, and Molly hurried through it, only to run headlong into her older brother Gideon, who was in his last year at Hogwarts and was intent on becoming an Auror. They were very close.  
  
He took one look at her tear-streaked face and pulled her over to the chairs by the fireplace. "Moll, what's happened? What's upset you like this?"  
  
"Oh, Gideon. Tell me honestly. As a boy, not a brother. Do you think I'm pretty?"  
  
"So it's like that, is it, Moll? Who's the lucky victim?" He smiled at her affectionately. If some brute had hurt his little sister, they'd be dealing with him straight away!  
  
She just sat there, tears streaming down her face. Gideon took out a handkerchief, dried her face gently, and then handed it to her. She blew her nose wetly and sat back in the chair. Gideon lifted her chin with his hand and inspected her face from every angle. He smiled and said, "Yes, Molly, you've turned out very pretty. Any boy who wouldn't look twice at you must be blind." His mouth twitched as he added, "And that's as a boy, mind. Not a brother."  
  
Molly smiled a little, then whispered, "It's Arthur, Gid."  
  
"Weasley? Hmph. He's not a bad bloke. Say! He hasn't tried anything funny has he?" Gideon raised his voice.  
  
"Heavens, no, Gideon! Quite the opposite." Molly rolled her eyes.  
  
Gideon smirked, "So you'd like just a little trouble in that area, eh?"  
  
Molly blushed, then answered, "It's just that we've been best friends for so long. Then one day, I looked at him, and . . . it was just different. Does that make any sense?"  
  
"Makes perfect sense, Moll."  
  
"I just don't think he sees me any differently. I'm just the same old Molly he's known since forever."  
  
Gideon smiled at her. "Ought to be good enough for the likes of him, I'd say, but maybe . . . maybe you need to stop being the same old Molly to him."  
  
Molly stared at her brother. "But how, Gideon?"  
  
"Play to your strengths, love. That's what that crazy bloke from the Aurors always says to me. Play to your strengths." He glanced down at his watch and said, "And we need to get to class right now, or we'll be late. Come on."  
  
He reached down and hauled her out of the chair by both hands and gave her a big hug.  
  
"Feel better?"  
  
Molly nodded and said, "Loads." She wondered how in the world she would ever be able to survive without Gideon around.  
  
After class, Molly intercepted Marlene McKinnon on her way to lunch. "Come with me to the library! Now!" she hissed.  
  
"What about the boys? They'll be wondering . . ."  
  
"Oh, bugger the boys, Marlene! I need your help!"  
  
They hurried to the library and threw their books on a scarred wooden table in the very back.  
  
"I've figured out what to do about Arthur," Molly whispered, "A love potion. That's what I'll have to do. I talked to Gideon, and he told me to play to my strengths, and potions are my strength."  
  
"Oh, Molly, I don't think that's what he meant. That's against the rules, that is. Besides, it's just . . . not a good idea."  
  
"Well, do you have a better plan?"  
  
Molly talked her friend into helping her research several of the most popular love potions the library had on file. She finally settled on a potion from _1001 Elixirs of Love_ by Aphrodite La Mour.  
  
"This is ridiculously easy!" Molly laughed. Then she heard a voice behind her that made her start suddenly.  
  
"Er, Molly?"  
  
"Arthur!" Molly slammed the book shut over her notes.  
  
He stammered, "I was just, erm, wondering where you were. I guess I, well, missed you in the Great Hall and wondered if you felt ill or something. You weren't there, so I came . . . to find you."  
  
She looked up at him and sighed. "I'm fine, Arthur. Let's go to class." She glanced over at Marlene, who understandingly made no move to get up. Molly picked up her notes on the love potion, tore them into bits, and tossed them in the rubbish bin as the two of them walked out of the library.  
  
"What's was that you were working on?" Arthur wondered.  
  
"Nothing important. Nothing at all." Molly realized with a sinking feeling that if a love potion were the only way to get Arthur to notice her, it would be no good at all. She didn't really want him on those terms, and there was nothing she could do about it.  
  
Later, up in the dormitory, she explained it to Marlene. "I see what you meant now. It's just not right somehow. And I think I've realized something else too. It was how I felt when Arthur said he missed me and had come looking for me . . ." She looked up at Marlene with an odd look on her face. "Marlene, I'm in love with him, aren't I? Not just fancy him, but really, really in love with him."  
  
Marlene hugged her friend and laughed. "Could've told you that a long time ago, I could've."  
  
Late that evening, Molly and Arthur managed to get a table near the enormous fireplace in the Gryffindor common room and eventually found themselves the only ones up studying. Molly handed a long piece of parchment to Arthur, commenting, "Well, that's sorted out. A shambles, as usual. What about mine?"  
  
Arthur tried with some difficulty not to smirk.  
  
"Let me guess. Totally pants, right?" she laughed. "Arthur, we make quite a team, don't we? Between the two of us, we could accomplish just about anything we set our minds to, don't you think?"  
  
He looked up her, startled, and it was as if he were seeing her for the first time. The firelight behind her auburn mane glowed like a beacon in the darkness of the dim common room, and he gasped.  
  
"M-Molly," Arthur stammered.  
  
She looked up and was taken aback by his stare. She gave him a concerned look and whispered, "Arthur, what's wrong?"  
  
He stared at her for a moment longer, then looked away, embarrassed.  
  
Molly reached out and took his hand. "What is it? This is me—Molly--remember? You know you can tell me anything."  
  
"Merlin, this is so hard. This is exactly the sort of thing you always have to manage for me, and, well, I suppose this time I really should do it myself, eh?"  
  
"It would be nice, yes," Molly smiled, "but I'll do it if you really need me to."  
  
Arthur smiled at her. "No, that won't be necessary at all." He reached over, placed a hand on her cheek, and continued, "You're my old Molly, after all." He cleared his throat and said clearly, "Molly, I would be delighted if you would attend the Winter Ball with me."  
  
He paused and looked down at his shoes. "There, that wasn't so hard really, was it?"  
  
"Oh, Arthur, I would be honored to go with you."  
  
Arthur looked up at her as if surprised by her answer, after all. "You would? Amazing! Well, that's settled then, right?" He grinned at her.  
  
Molly grinned back at him. Then she leaned forward so that their faces were almost touching and said, "Not quite. This, Arthur, would be an excellent time for you to kiss me, were you so inclined."  
  
As it would happen, Arthur was, in fact, very much so inclined, and between the two of them, they accomplished everything they set their minds to for the rest of the evening.


End file.
